


Kintsugi

by darknesscrochets



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Crisis of Faith, Gen, Having Faith, Spoilers for S4, spoilers through 156
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:54:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26604061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darknesscrochets/pseuds/darknesscrochets
Summary: Kintsugi ("golden joinery"), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer mixed with powdered gold. (Wikipedia)Zolf, Grizzop, and Azu, and their relationships with their gods.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 28





	Kintsugi

When Zolf channels Poseidon, it feels… rote. Like he's doing what he feels like he has to do--not in a ritualistic way, but like the energy is stormwater flowing through rough-carved paths in his soul, and catching in places where the paths aren’t smooth.

He didn’t used to know it could feel any different. _Should_ feel different. In the beginning, back on the pirate ship when he first became a disciple of the ocean, everything was… new. Raw. Nothing fit with the person he’d been before. No longer a subordinate officer of the navy, nor a reckless child lashing out at the future laid out for him by his family.

It hurt, in those early days. Like Poseidon's energy was scrubbing him down, trying to wash away the parts of Zolf that just didn't _work_ the way Poseidon thought they should. Zolf has always been stubborn, though, even with the weight of the ocean brought to bear against him.

It still hurts, sometimes. And Zolf’s starting to realize that it shouldn’t.

By the time the Rangers leave Paris, he knows something needs to give, and he doesn't know if it'll be him or a god what breaks first.

*****

When Grizzop asks Artemis for a blessing, it feels exactly how it's always felt-- _right_. The rush of goddess-sent energy should overwhelm him, send him to his knees. It doesn't; it never has, not even the first time, when he’d never felt his goddess so close before. His faith guides him, lets him direct and use his goddess's power for the hunt she’s set him on.

Grizzop has always had a purpose. Protecting his clutch, learning as much as he could as an initiate of the temple, hunting down bounties as a paladin of Artemis--he's always known what he's supposed to be doing. He’s never had any questions, no space for doubt in his mind.

He knows, too, that Artemis is always there with him. Across cities, continents, _time itself_ \--she is always with him, and he has never, ever doubted this fact. Even in death, he has faith in the goddess whom he serves, and who guides him in turn.

*****

When Azu reaches out to her goddess, it is with the strongest feeling of love that she can muster. Her love changes with time, but her faith has always been rooted in her heart.

In the beginning, it is the newborn love of a flowerbud, joyous and heartfelt but almost overwhelming in its potential. A love like spring, growing out of the winter of her leaving all she had known before. In her travels, those first months, it matures, blooms into something with more depth. A whole bush of flowers, with strong roots deep in the earth. Azu does not doubt in those days, but neither does she encounter anything that _would_ shake her faith.

Until Rome. Rome cracks the foundations of her earth, her faith; and Shoin's institute is like water, seeping into those cracks. When the water freezes, the cracks grow. She doubts, then. Her love is no less strong, but it is shot through with grief and loss and _guilt_. It burns when she reaches out to her goddess, the feeling of _could have held on, should have saved them, done better, done_ something.

After it all--leaving that place, strengthening her bonds with her old companions and building new ones, hearing from someone she never would have hoped to hear from again--she feels reforged. She has grieved, and come out the other side. The cracks in her heart haven't healed the same as they were before, but… Azu feels like a vase she's seen, on a shelf in the inn. Broken once, but pieced back together with care and time and love, the fracture lines filled in with gold. Different, but still beautiful.

Her love, when she reaches out to Aphrodite, is streaked with that same gold. Stronger, for having doubted and broken and consciously made the choice to love again.

*****

Zolf handles faith… differently, after the world ends. Maybe he broke, or maybe it was just his relationship with Poseidon--maybe a little of both. Whichever it was, their _relationship_ wasn't healthy, and he's not on speaking terms with that particular god anymore.

He doesn't depend on a god these days. Doesn't depend on anything outside of himself and his team--he places his faith in _people_ now, instead of some divine unknowable being. Some days, bad days, that faith feels misplaced. He gets so angry, so fed up with the universe and the way it keeps throwing one problem at them after another, problems that he _can’t do anything about_.

Good days, though… he pulls power out of a well, deep inside himself. He didn't always know it was there, but he thinks, in retrospect, it has been. Energy flows from his core and it feels calm and hopeful and undeniably _his_. No expectations to conform to someone else’s idea of who he should be--not from the navy, not from his family, not from Poseidon. Zolf believes in his comrades, his team, his own _self_.

Zolf knows what rock bottom looks like, and he has hope--has _faith_ \--that they can drag a better future kicking and screaming from the blue-stained ashes of the present.

**Author's Note:**

> me: i only really feel comfortable writing wilde  
> My brain: what if you wrote 800 words about the divine characters and their approaches with faith/gods  
> Me:... :/ fine
> 
> TY to rose for the beta!
> 
> We get so many faceted looks at each character and their faith and relationship with their god (or not, with Zolf) and… it’s a good podcast folks


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